In his opening address, Mr Semjén said if there is no game management, forests cannot be maintained in their present form because they would be destroyed by the over-populated game populations. He added that this is also true of agricultural areas: the damage caused by over-populated game would lead to endless conflicts with farmers.

Modern and quality game management is also important from the viewpoint of sustaining the quantity and quality of game. “The game population thrives in places where there is sustainable hunting,” said the Deputy Prime Minister who is also president of the National Hungarian Hunting Society.

He said in order to organise the ‘One with Nature’ World of Hunting and Nature Exhibition in a befitting manner, Hungary’s hunting affairs had to be put in order first. This required five important measures.

The first one was for the country to have reasonable and practical arms legislation; the unnecessary bureaucratic burdens were “shaven off”. According to Mr Semjén, they succeeded in creating the world’s best hunting law. This, he said, primarily serves to protect game and preserves a minimum area size of 3,000 hectares; as a result, hunting societies are unable to settle for shooting game in transit, and it is possible to engage in genuine game management.

From the viewpoint of hunting, it is also important that hunting action plans now concern a period of 20 years and are so better suited to covering the actual hunting cycles of the game population than the earlier cycles of 10 years.

He added that trophy evaluation – which is important for quality game management – had been restored.

Additionally, the introduction of chief hunters for geographical regions and the system of geographical regions was a revolutionary innovation.

The fifth pillar is the reinforcement of the chamber of hunters by virtue of the fact that the state surrendered the fees of hunting tags to the chamber. As a result, a new habitat development fund has been created which was previously inconceivable, he added.

Mr Semjén said the series of events attached to the hunting world exhibition will be similar to a pyramid: the most important central event is the thematic world exhibition lasting for three weeks to be held at the HUNGEXPO event venue. The second level comprises three major

central venues: Hatvan, Keszthely and Vásárosnamény. The next level is the network of thematic and national museums as well as the country’s 1,500 game management units which will showcase their values.

Government commissioner responsible for the organisation of the world exhibition and the attached series of events Zoltán Kovács said the flags of 98 countries will be hoisted at the event, as part of which almost a thousand programme elements will be organised.

During the twenty days of the event at HUNGEXPO, six international conferences will be held, and in addition to the three venues in the countryside, the world exhibition will reach every corner of the country. He added that the 1,500 organisations entitled to hold hunts will organise 529 events.

So far, 64.3 million people have seen the message of the world exhibition, the government commissioner added.